Are e cigarettes harmful? New Zealand officials say “no”

It is widely known that smoking tobacco is bad for you but…. are e cigarettes harmful? If you live in New Zealand, the official answer is “no”, as the countries health ministry recently proclaimed e cigarettes as a “health- friendly smoking option.” This means that you can smoke anywhere you want in New Zealand which includes planes, trains, restaurants and the workplace:

Are e cigarettes harmful? New Zealand officials say “no”

Are e cigarettes harmful? The FDA, American Cancer Association and the American Heart Association say "YES"

SBWIRE: Interestingly, electric cigarettes are not just human-health friendly, but are harmless for the environment too. These do not contain carcinogens or emit offensive smoke. Instead e cigarettes emit pure vapors from combustion of nicotine mixed with vegetable glycerin. The fact that an e-smoker gets to enjoy pure nicotine vapor without falling prey to any hazards at all weighs tremendously in the favor of e cigs.

Comparison of e cigs with traditional cigarettes is obvious since the former are modeled on and developed as a better version of their traditional counterparts. “Smoking an entire cartridge of e cigarettes is over 500 times better for the health than smoking one traditional cigarette” informed Prof. Siegel, an MD from the Chicago University in order to assert the point.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has been prudent enough to recognize and spread to its people the benefits of smoking the electronic cigarette over the regular ones in time. It is speculated that many more countries would soon follow this suit set up by some of the well developed and leading nations of the world.whole article

Opposing viewpoints and why the USA is once again behind the times is explained in the following article published in the NY Times by John Tierney. Are e cigarettes harmful? Yes says the FDA, American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, Action on Smoking and Health, and the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids…. but they can’t prove why:

NY Times Article: There’s a powerful group working against this innovation (the e cigarette) — and it’s not Big Tobacco. It’s a coalition of government officials and antismoking groups who have been warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes and trying to ban their sale.

The Food and Drug Administration tried to stop the sale of e-cigarettes by treating them as a “drug delivery device” that could not be marketed until its safety and efficacy could be demonstrated in clinical trials.

The prohibitionists lost that battle last year, when the F.D.A. was overruled in court, but they’ve continued the fight by publicizing the supposed perils of e-cigarettes. They argue that the devices, like smokeless tobacco, reduce the incentive for people to quit nicotine and could also be a “gateway” for young people and nonsmokers to become nicotine addicts. And they cite an F.D.A. warning that several chemicals in the vapor of e-cigarettes may be “harmful” and “toxic.” But the agency has never presented evidence that the trace amounts actually cause any harm, and it has neglected to mention that similar traces of these chemicals have been found in other F.D.A.-approved products, including nicotine patches and gum. The agency’s methodology and warnings have been lambasted in scientific journals by Dr. Polosa and other researchers, including Brad Rodu, a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

“There is no evidence that e-cigarettes have ever harmed anyone, or that youths or nonsmokers have begun using the products,” William T. Godshall, the executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania said. On a scale of harm from 1 to 100, where nicotine gums and lozenges are 1 and cigarettes are 100, he estimated that e-cigarettes are no higher than 2. read the whole article

If you’ve been following articles here at Holistic Remedies News, you will notice that the FDA often bashes many harmless herbs and natural remedies similar to what’s happening with the e cigarette. Funny how they allow dangerous drugs with numerous side effects to slip through the cracks and make a stink (no pun intended) against an odorless e cigarette. Perhaps the real question here is, what type of financial benefits can our governmental agencies expect to gain by keeping a ban on the e cigarette? Are e cigarettes harmful… perhaps to someone’s pocketbook? What do you think?

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